Three Presidents and an Aide: Life, Power and Politics By Ambassador Arshad Sami Khan SJ Pentagon Press; Pp 286

My dear countrymen — three ‘nation altering words’ followed by some standard lines that come from an equally standard speech, typically associated with the beginning or ending of a takeover. In Pakistan anyway. It is an increasingly familiar pattern, an unfortunate legacy and a well-acted performance that every generation gets to experience, analyse, dread and crib over for the remainder of their lives. It is also one that they seldom understand fully, can never challenge and forever speculate about. The camera eventually pans away from the triumphant or vanquished knight in fatigues. The haze of mystery surrounding the men who wielded a nation’s fate in their hands oh so casually, remains.

Rich Arabs in the Middle East are ‘earning’ a place in paradise in the life hereafter through never ending generous donations to the Taliban and the madrassas producing foot soldiers and a jihadi mindset on the Pakhtun land. They do not even care to consider that their ‘pursuit’ of a place in paradise is causing so much death and destruction

Now the Supreme Court has taken up the issue in all seriousness. But more worms are crawling out. We now know that Musharraf's chief honcho Iqbal Z Ahmad has been doling out liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) permits to people to buy their support or silence. They include Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, former NAB chairman Gen (r) Munir Hafeez, federal minister for investment Senator Gulzar Ahmad, former interior ministers Gen (r) Moeenuddin Haider and Aftab Sherpao, former governor of Punjab Gen (r) Khalid Maqbool, National Bank president Syed Ali Raza and Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, and many others.